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About Golgolath

I sometimes feel nostalgic and replay the original Avernum 2 and Avernum 3, but the lack of a quest tracker in the original Avernum 1 sadly kills the game for me. I'll probably never play the original A1 due to that.
Luckily, the Escape from the Pit version of Avernum is magnificent.

Now that I've beaten A3, I was pleasantly surprised with how bow/melee DPS worked out throughout most of the game. Obviously, it can't even compare to my priest popping adrenaline rush then wiping out entire areas with multiple Divine Retributions, but against single targets, dual wielding with at least one weapon having an elemental attack (like a frozen or acid sword), or using bows with lots and lots of Sniper procs was actually quite effective for single targets.
Having said that, shields are still a bit of a head scratcher for me. In my mind, wearing a shield should do two things, 1) massively increase the power of the Challenger trait so that your character can well and truly hold the enemies' attention, and 2) make them nearly invincible. A character with a shield is going to do next to nothing in terms of damage, and it feels like currently, shields aren't nearly effective enough to justify building a "tank" type character.

Disclaimer: I have never played Avernum 4-6. I have no idea in the slightest what happens in those games.
In Avernum 3, the plagues created by the Vahnatai admittedly do a lot of damage to Valorim, but the fact remains that they are pretty easily nullified by a single group of people. Later on, the Vahnatai suffer a devastating defeat at Rentar Ihnro's keep at the hands of the same small group.
Lore-wise, it is repeatedly shown throughout the series that individual Vahnatai, while dangerous, cannot go toe to toe with larger forces without being wiped out (see: Ornotha Ziggurat). The most powerful Vahnatai was, for all practical purposes, defeated in combat by a single human arch-mage, and their Crystal Souls were easily nullified and destroyed when they were fought in the golem factory.
Based on that, I kind of wonder just how dangerous they really are. It seems like in a head-on battle between the Vahnatai and even Avernum's forces, the Vahnatai would probably have lost. Certainly it doesn't seem like they could possibly have stood up to the Empire in a straight fight. They seem more like "very dangerous commandos" who couldn't survive a set piece battle against a real army.
It seems like what defeated the Empire in Avernum 2 was less the intervention of the Vahnatai than Avernum completely crippling the empire's logistics by destroying the portal. Curious about people's opinions:
1. Could Avernum have won the war in Avernum 2 without the Vahnatai's help?
2. Could the Vahnatai possibly have survived a war against the Empire?

It's also possible that logistically, trying to move that many troops to a single continent is difficult. I'm not sure how long the plagues have actually lasted before Ruined World begins, but I got the impression it was weeks at most. That's not very much time, and most of the Empire forces in the area are up in northern Valorim, fighting and containing the most dangerous plagues (golems, alien beasts).
In Crystal Souls, despite having a massive military, the empire is not able to bring it to bear against Avernum before the souls are recovered and the Vahnatai/Avernum forces are able to cut off the Empire's logistics and defeat them. This suggests that even with portals, there are significant limitations to how fast the Empire can respond to things.

Having played through most of the game fairly inefficiently and without making any sort of special allocation for time, I'm at day 70 with all but the golems completed, and I've found that most of the destruction isn't all that bad. I didn't prioritize ending the plagues over other quests, but even still, I never "lost" a single town. Actually, seeing them get more and more beaten up over time is kind of interesting.
This isn't really as bad as I thought it would be. I probably won't overly stress about the date in future playthroughs, it seems well balanced enough to just be an interesting bit of added flavor without compromising overall enjoyment of the game.

I'm most of the way through the game. I've saved all the towns I care about. I'm pumped up and ready for the Tower of the Magi battle. In the original Avernum 3, this is the point where I would use the editor to jump forward to about day 155 or so.
But it's a hundred days away. Aside from leaving the space bar held down for hours or running up and down the continent like 30 times, is there any faster way of advancing time? Like sleeping in an inn, or some other special encounter that takes up a large amount of time at once and can be repeated?

Thanks! Even when I was in that room pressing U to look for hidden switches, I STILL managed to miss it.
Shame there's no Dark Wyrms there in A3:EW. Those things were terrifying and very interesting to fight

In Grindstone Caverns (one of the lower levels of the giant caves), there is a large area in the SE corner of the zone that I haven't been able to figure out how to reach. In the old Avernum 3, you could get there by walking through lava, and it was full of Dark Wyrms. In this version, I can't figure out how to get there anymore. Anyone know how to do this?

I know certain things can be extensively modified (like items) by tweaking the various data files used by the game. Is it possible to modify the amount of XP granted by mobs in any way?
Context: It's way too easy to out-level content. I haven't even finished the bottom half of Valorim and I am already at level 30. Nothing I kill gives much of any XP, which is turning combat into a chore instead of something exciting and entertaining. If I could say...half the amount of XP each mob gives, that would probably help my enjoyment. I thought about just making Sliths, but the human racial bonus is just too good to pass up.

Aha. The missing link was to actually leave the Manse. I kept repeatedly running outside Lorelai, waiting for like 30 steps, then walking back inside and going to the Manse. Took less than 10 minutes to get the sword after I did that

How do you get Marjorie's various scripted events in the Manse to trigger leading up to whatever the A3:RW equivalent of the alien blade is? I've always had trouble getting this to actually do anything, but I'm having more trouble than I did with the original Avernum 3 version.
I've wandered around every corner of the house dozens of items, I've slept in the bed multiple times. I even held down the space bar for over a minute to advance time by a day or two but nothing happened. What am I missing here?

As much as I personally enjoy melee and especially archers in games, around midgame in A1:EFtP and A2:CS I would always find myself getting rid of my melee and archers and replacing them with priests, since pretty much nothing could compare to chain casting Divine Retribution to wipe out entire rooms at once. Given how extreme the damage cap and mitigation of melee/bow damage seemed to be in the last two games, I never found it worthwhile.
What I would have liked would be a system where melee and bows were murderously high single target DPS, and spells better for AOE damage, but it always seemed like spells were always the correct choice.
Is the balance any better in this game or should I just have three priests (one with endurance and tank traits) and a mage?

I bought those because I thought the game was too cheap and would have paid $100 if it was an option in steam. It comes with some fun wallpapers and also a PDF containing a surprisingly huge amount of useful information, including maps of some of the dungeons, descriptions of exactly how to start and complete the five major artifact quests, lists of towns, and a full overworld map.
I loved it, I probably won't even need to bother with FAQs for this game in the future, I'll just refer back to the PDF.